MCP Insiders Call on Chakwera to Step Down Over Corruption and Party Mismanagement

A rebellion is brewing inside the ruling Malawi Congress Party (MCP), and the message from the insurgent faction is blunt, furious and unmistakable: President Lazarus Chakwera must step down.

A pressure group calling itself the MCP Revolution for Change of Leadership has publicly demanded that Chakwera relinquish the party presidency, accusing him of presiding over a culture of corruption, internal betrayal and a leadership style that has alienated the party’s own loyalists.

And the group says it is not bluffing.

“We stand before you today as members of the MCP Revolution for Change of Leadership, a serious and committed reform movement within the Malawi Congress Party,” the group’s chairperson Samson Chaziya declared during a press briefing.

“This movement is not a joke, nor is it driven by personal grudges. It is a principled effort to restore accountability, discipline and direction within our beloved party.”

The warning represents one of the most direct and scathing internal attacks on Chakwera since MCP assumed power under the Tonse Alliance in 2020.

According to Chaziya, the pressure group was formed in 2021, barely a year after MCP took power, when members began to notice what they describe as a steady erosion of the party’s core values and structures.

The group says it even sought an audience with Chakwera to raise the alarm.

“We warned him that the administration was gradually drifting away from the values and structures of the Malawi Congress Party,” Chaziya said.

But those warnings, the group claims, fell on deaf ears.

At the centre of the rebellion is anger over what the group describes as the systematic sidelining of long-serving MCP loyalists in favour of outsiders.

According to the rebels, key positions in government have increasingly been handed to individuals with little or no historical connection to the party, leaving grassroots members who fought for the party during years in opposition feeling abandoned and betrayed.

“This created frustration among loyal party members who had worked tirelessly for the party during the years it was in opposition,” Chaziya said.

The group’s secretary Potiphar Banda went even further, accusing the current leadership of failing to consult party structures, tolerating corruption and operating without transparency in the management of the Tonse Alliance arrangement.

Banda said the group had even submitted a petition to Chakwera recommending that some of his aides implicated in corruption be removed from office.

Nothing happened.

“Unfortunately none of these recommendations were taken seriously. Nothing changed,” Banda said.

The group now argues that the failure to act on those warnings has seriously damaged MCP’s popularity, placing the party at risk of losing power.

They claim they warned Chakwera years ago that ignoring governance failures could have devastating electoral consequences.

“We warned President Chakwera at that time that if the concerns raised were ignored, the party risked losing government in the 2025 elections,” the group said.

Their solution is drastic and uncompromising: Chakwera must step aside.

“The Malawi Congress Party is bigger than any individual,” Chaziya said. “It belongs to its members from villages and trading centres to districts and regions across Malawi.”

But MCP’s official leadership is already pushing back.

Party publicity secretary Jessie Kabwila dismissed the group outright, saying the party does not recognise the existence of the faction.

“I have just heard about the grouping,” Kabwila said.

Yet the emergence of the rebel faction comes amid growing signs of internal discomfort within MCP’s parliamentary ranks.

Last month speculation intensified when Dedza legislator Sosten Gwengwe wrote to the party’s chief whip requesting to move to the backbench in Parliament.

Gwengwe later confirmed the decision himself.

“I have moved to the back until there is a leadership change in the party,” he said.

The request triggered fresh whispers of dissatisfaction among senior party figures.

However, MCP Chief Whip Moses Kunkuyu attempted to downplay the development, insisting that internal issues are normally handled through formal party structures.

Political analyst Ernest Thindwa says the developments could signal deepening cracks within the ruling party’s leadership.

According to Thindwa, moves by prominent figures to withdraw from frontline roles may indicate growing pressure for a major shake-up within MCP’s executive leadership.

“High-profile figures like Gwengwe may no longer see sufficient incentives to remain in frontline roles,” he said, warning that the situation could signal a push for a complete overhaul of the party leadership.

For now, the MCP leadership insists the rebel movement does not officially exist.

But the fury expressed by the self-styled reform faction suggests something far more unsettling: a party at war with itself, and a presidency increasingly under fire from within its own ranks.

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